LastMinuteLucie and the search for time

Posts tagged ‘artspace’

I have sighed over other people’s workspaces for SO long that I can’t quite believe I finally have one of my own.

For a short while I had part of the shed in the garden as my ‘studio’, but the electricity connection never happened and it couldn’t be used in the evening or in the winter as a consequence. Gradually it got taken over by the rest of the shed.

So I turned my attention to a deep alcove in our dining room. Unfortunately, I don’t have a ‘before’ photo to share, but it basically held a large cupboard stuffed full of boxes of craft materials, fabrics, Guide stuff and anything else that didn’t have a home. In the gap beside it were six plastic drawers of children’s craft/art materials and paper and around all that was sewing bits and pieces.

Well, you can imagine what a joy it was to try and find anything – plus if I started an activity it had to be tidied away before dinner and then it took a week for it to come out again.

I had a plan in mind for this space – drew it out, explained it to lovely husband and explained it again. We don’t exactly have a meeting of minds when it comes to imagining how something might look…

But a trip to IKEA and a long hard think has finally become what I wanted. I am so happy with it I almost cried when lovely husband screwed in the final holding screw. (and you can see the cat was also impressed)

In case you are wondering, that is a freezer under the table top (much handier for the kitchen now it’s not in the hall, under the stairs), and next to that a chest of drawers my mum used as a changing table for me as a baby, which I decoupaged with copied pages from ‘Mother Tells You How’. There’s also a table I can pull out to work on and my Grandma’s sewing box (also decoupaged) is on the surface above. The table top is made from the old cupboard.

I have boxes and space for all the things I actually need to hand and it forced me to sort the wheat from the chaff – even if I did look like the Hoarder Next Door for a fortnight.

Another place also got the tidy treatment as a result of this new storage space – the under stairs now boasts shelving from the old cupboard and it holds all sorts of useful things in a neat fashion. We are still getting used to not having to rummage to find things and not having to apologise for it as people walk by on the way in.